The First Snow
by Marquis Blue
Summary: Zexion thought he had kicked Demyx and all that came with him from his life, but he's still haunted by him months later. It's anybody's guess if the insecurity will go away, if he will ever forget... And if Demyx will ever let him. au, zemyx, akuroku
1. Flinch

**Warning: This story contains heavy amounts of drugs and alcohol, smut, and language. So if you don't like that sort of stuff, don't say I didn't warn you. :(**

**Right. If you've read past that, read on and hope you enjoy!  
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><p><em>Zexion stared at the bags by the door and the man beside them.<em>

_Demyx was beautiful as ever, but he had lost weight for one thing. And another, he looked angry of all things. Demyx, angry, when he was the one who had come into his house at six in the morning with bags, in from the rain. The thunder outside echoed the sentiment in Zexion's heart._

_Three months. The young man hastened to button up his pyjamas completely, blushing to himself. "What do you want, Demyx?" he asked, hovering by his counter. He didn't know what to expect, but something in the pit of his stomach told him he wanted it. It was just his head, quietly swearing out, quietly cursing the man across the room._

_Because he couldn't help himself in recognising that in the last three months, he was far from getting over Demyx._

_"I want you. I still do," Demyx said plainly. "And I'm sorry."_

_Zexion's hand curled around the counter, and he felt a small growl climb up his body. "Get out." His body made a quiet lurch, telling him, Let him in, let him come back._

_But Zexion knew that would be just as stupid as the first time he let Demyx into his apartment._

_"Look," the musician began desperately, dropping his bags completely and marching across the room, tearing up his jacket sleeve and ignoring how Zexion flinched away. "Look, Zex," he insisted, showing both of his bare wrists._

_Speckled with white, speckled with scars, but no longer speckled with red. "I'm clean. I've been clean. I put myself in a home and everything, remember? I got nothing in my system, haven't since that day. I'm not gonna mess up. Please." He lowered both his hands._

_Zexion looked vehemently away and turned to fix himself a cup of tea. "Do you want tea?" he asked as he scooted about his kitchen, not looking at Demyx, not wanting to. Every look sent a chill up him. The sight of Demyx's naturally-tanned skin reminded him of before, when he had seen everything and Demyx had likewise of him, those days that remained in his dreams._

_These dreams hurt him the most when he woke up and realised they were long over. Demyx's absence had broken him up inside more than he ever liked to admit._

_"No tea, thanks," Demyx's musical voice filled up the apartment and Zexion hated to think that that was a symphony he missed. "You don't believe me, do you, Zex?"_

_"Who says you haven't been shooting up somewhere else?" he said as he set the kettle on the stove. "Upper arm. Thigh. There are many pulse points. I had a patient who did it up his groin."_

_"I wouldn't," he almost whined. "You want to see?"_

_"**No.** Don't you dare," Zexion hissed, turning at last and glaring through his unruly hair. He hadn't had a haircut since Demyx. Now his locks were falling over his chin, crawling down the back of his neck. He had refused the looks he'd been given by his secretary, even by his patients. He was fine, he insisted to himself. Demyx was just a patient, just a patient he'd pushed out of his care because he wasn't eligible to handle him._

_You couldn't be a therapist and a lover in one package. It took him a long time to realise it, and by then it was too late, too fucked up._

_It was his own fault that Demyx had fallen deep down into that hole of addiction, of disaster. The musician had been getting better all until he had signed him off to go to another counselor. Then, for lack of better word, he had crashed._

_Zexion didn't let himself think any further than that. He told himself not to think, because it was no longer his business. The truth was that it hurt._

_He flinched in surprise when Demyx slid in front of him, and then he realised that the kettle was whistling and the man was taking care of it for him. "No, no," he said sharply, pushing in and grabbing the metal handle- bare._

_Zexion was acutely aware of the heat that made his skin scream and feel the sting. Hissing in pain, he withdrew his hand, and Demyx shot him a look, soft aquamarine eyes loud with concern. The sun made him look bright, more ethereal and less solid than Zexion had seen him before. It took him by surprise._

_"Careful," the musician whispered, quickly carrying the kettle with a dishcloth to insulate the heat and setting it on a placemat, turning back to him. "Is it burned?" he asked, reaching for his hand._

_Before he was aware of a thing, Zexion found the musician's callused hands brushing over his own, feeling the fledgling blisters on his fingertips. "You don't usually do something without thinking like that," Demyx said, before lifting his hand and gently kissing those pale fingertips._

_Zexion cringed and withdrew his hands, shuddering all over. Demyx's touch, Demyx's lips brought back memories from hibernation. They woke his body, made him remember vividly with that contact's assistance. "**Stop that**," he hissed. "Stop it."_

_"You're not kicking me out yet," the musician said, looking at him steadily. "You know, it's been seven months, and not once have you admitted anything honestly. That's why we never got anywhere, Zexion. Because you're locked up like this."_

_"For my own sake!" he yelled. "Do you suppose I'd have gotten through your institutionalisation by being a vulnerable little whelp? Do not feed me that rubbish, Demyx! Hearing you relapsed, hearing of the alcohol percentage in your system, and the pot, if I didn't hole up I'd break down and who would be weak then?"_

_"I got into that mess because I freaked out, I was hurt," Demyx said quietly, eyes narrowing. "I did it because I thought you didn't want me. If you didn't, I didn't figure anyone would. Or care." He looked straight on at Zexion, with a gaze so heavy the smaller man felt near to squirming. "I didn't think you cared."_

_"You're an idiot. My counseling did nothing," Zexion grumbled and tried- tried, and failed- to get to the kettle, nursing his hand to his chest._

_He could feel it in how Demyx stood his ground. The musician was angry. He aureated rage that was completely unlike him. He was not the spineless child Zexion saw when he first saw him on his couch, months ago. And what alarmed Zexion was that he knew who had made this change._

_It was himself._

_"**Damn** you, Zex," Demyx hissed, grabbing his shoulders tightly._

_Zexion was conscious of how it seemed like an explosion of memories when their lips were smashed together in heat. He was surprised, ashamed to hear it escape from his own throat- a whimper of overwhelmed emotion._

_No one else had ever had him, and even in the two months when he had experimented, no one else had even let him get it up the same way. It was Demyx. He always just figured he must have been as cracked as some of his patients if he still curled his hands around the circumference of his sex and only felt blinding pleasure when he thought of a man who was institutionalised for his drug use, for going off the deep end. He figured, he must have been insane to even consider that he loved an addict._

_He figured it was a vicious cycle, forgetting just what made him forget all those thoughts._

_It was Demyx. He just forgot all those second-guesses and doubts when Demyx was actually there. He didn't know what got over him with the man's touch, but those arms rough around him, gripping his lower back and ass and those hot, soft lips bruising his own-_

_Zexion realised he was crying._

_"I hate you," he said, immobile by Demyx's arms tight around him. "I hate how you make me feel this way."_

_"And want? What do you want?" Demyx said, breath hot against his ear, teasing him._

_Zexion hated to feel his body stiffen, the blood rush and felt the uncomfortable tightness of his pyjama waistband all of a sudden, the begging of release. "Kiss me again, you idiot." He strained to keep his voice normal and keep that emotionally cracked dryness from collapsing it._

_Demyx complied, tongue sweeping against him, hotly enjoying the inside of him. "I missed you," he said as he pushed Zexion against the kitchen counter, "God damn, Zexion, you can't imagine. I missed you so much."_

_"Idiot," Zexion snarled, deep blue eyes blazing as he met Demyx's. No stop, his mind told him. Stop there before he sees inside of you and sees all the cracks, this is an obstinate mess. "This is a mistake," he spoke weakly as Demyx ground against him. Zexion knew how hard he was himself, and was ashamed of it._

_"Your body doesn't seem to think so," Demyx grunted, supporting himself with his palms flat on the table on each side of the smaller man. "I bet you never really thought so."_

_Zexion lowered his head, finally finding enough space to wipe the ridiculous dampness from his face. Why had he ever cried? Nobody made him cry, what kind of desperation was that? And for an addict, too-_

_"Stop that."_

_"What?" he looked up in surprise._

_"Stop thinking like that. You bite you lip, you touch your nose like that," Demyx was so close Zexion was aware of his hot breath, of how their bodies were building against each other with an overbearing heat. "You're lying to yourself when you do that."_

_Zexion glared at him. "Who's the psychologist here?"_

_"You," Demyx conceded, "but you lie to yourself, Zexion," he lifted his right hand, and stood back, slowly undoing the buttons of Zexion's shirt. One by one, his fingers snapped them out of their holes, and one by one Zexion shuddered as the morning air bit into him, and blushed with the heaviness of Demyx's hands on him._

_He was so hard. Harder than he had ever been in another's presence in months, and he wasn't even trying this time._

_"I thought about this for so long when I was in there. I thought about it every day. It was like five minutes of escape, thinking of you. And then there were the dreams," Demyx whispered. "I really wanted nothing else but to get out and get back to you. So I acted best as I could. And this is what I get? You've still got your head up your ass?" he said, finishing the last button, staring down the line of soft hairs that led down beyond the concealment of Zexion's waistband. "Come on, Zex," he smiled tentatively. "Why can't we be happy?"  
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_"What if I've had another sort of head up my ass?" Zexion snapped, "What if I had Lexaeus's all up inside me, or Axel's? What if I liked it much more than yours?"_

_In truth, he hadn't. He'd chickened out before he had gotten that deep with anyone he'd picked up. But he didn't want to tell that to Demyx._

_"Then you're just proving you're in denial," Demyx responded, before shoving down Zexion's pants altogether._

_Zexion yelped in surprise._

_"What? It's nothing I haven't seen before," the musician looked at him venomously. "I've seen all of you before. And you looked just as good as you do now. Better. You're still hot, and you know why I came here as soon as I was released, in these stupid release clothes," he pulled at the loose t-shirt, the badly-cut slacks. "Because I want you."_

_"You're mad at me," Zexion gripped the counter. "And I hate you. This is a mistake."_

_"Yeah, a mistake," Demyx laughed sarcastically. "And you're not hard as a rock?"_

_Zexion withdrew as far as he could, until his bare back was pressed against the hard surface. He realised he was coiled into himself like a frightened creature, like he feared being stricken- and then he realised that was just it. This was definitely Demyx, hair unchanged if not unstyled, body slim and still insanely attractive, but it wasn't the Demyx he wanted. It was an incarnation of him that **burned **to listen to and be around._

_Demyx bitterly stepped back, reacting to the silence._

_It was like some sort of monster possessing him had slipped out, and Zexion saw him again- just a guy, confusion pooling in his eyes and hurt drawing his features tight and sad. "God," his melodious voice fell to a whisper. "Ah, geez... I'm sorry, Zex. I'm a mess..." He looked down. "Darn it, just. Just forget about it, okay?" and then he turned away and ran, literally fled from the apartment. A moment more would be insult added to injury now._

_Zexion found himself still naked, still against the counter when the door closed and he heard the spare key being stowed beneath the loose brick in the hallway floor. He could almost hear Demyx fleeing back into the rain just to get away. Zexion found himself counting to ten and inhaling sharply, before he swallowed the semblance of tears threatening to come up again and withdrew to his bathroom, body unsatisfied, mind wrecked._

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><p>He woke in his bed at ten on a Sunday morning, hearing the roar of the rain and cursing his nightmares to high heaven. They were so much easier to deal with when he woke, when he forgot just how vivid they could be as they came with their horrible memories and possibilities.<p>

Zexion rose from bed, went and washed his face and brushed his teeth as routine declared he did each morning. Afterward he ran his hand haphazardly through his hair and crossed the room to pull shut the window, as rain was being blown in. Quickly and easily he moved to make his large bed, pulling the sheets into the air momentarily before bringing them down level over the mattress and tucking them in.

On a day with better weather, he might have heard kids on the street, like a serene track playing on the suburban mixtape. Today he just had the sound of the rain.

Zexion had had that flat for a year. He'd been working for longer, just to procure that lovely spot. The study, the austere kitchen and minimalist living room all suited him perfectly and were his pride and joy. No artwork covered the white walls, though in the guestroom there was a faint suggestion of posters, in the streaks where tape had ripped paint on the walls. Otherwise... they were plain and clean and just the way he wanted them.

He'd been living in peace since he had dismissed Demyx from his life and the musician had accordingly disappeared. It was a physical peace, at least. There were the dreams haunting him still, but yes. Things were fine. Things would go on as they were. Someday he would forget Demyx's name and face, and someday the vivid dreams would cease to come. They were pathetic anyway, just explorations of memories mingled with impossibilities.

He headed into the kitchen and stopped by the stove, reaching for the kettle and wrapping his hand around it. Zexion winced as pain shot up from his fingertips and he realised with surprise that the kettle was already full.

Turning his hand over, he peered down upon the pale skin and realised that fresh heat blisters lined them. Zexion squeezed his eyes tightly shut.

Part of him was inexplicably glad. The rest was terrified and suffocating with the violent and useless urge to cry.

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><p><strong>Reviews will always be cherished~<strong>


	2. Retrospect

**Thank you so much for the reads thus far, and thank you luckless-is-me for the review! It's all really appreciated. I liked your use of the word 'raw'- it's one of my favourite words because that makes me feel like at least the story's kind of... getting through to readers, I guess, haha. :) This chapter might now be as 'raw' since I fretted over it a lot more and have done some more plotting and note-taking since the last, but I hope it's okay...**

**One thing you don't need to worry about though is that things will definitely have a few reasons to be so messed up by the time of the events of chapter one! :D Okay, that sounded happier in my head. :D;;  
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**On to the chapter! Happy reading!  
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><p><em>September, the year before:<em>

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><p>Larxene lingered in the hallway, a strange, short, lithe figure to be holding a humongous and full cardboard box with so little effort.<p>

"It's just a temporary arrangement," Demyx had been in the middle of saying when he realised the look she was giving him.

Larxene was worried.

Demyx froze. "Larxene, what's up with that look?"

A short- too short- laugh flung itself carelessly from her mouth and she advanced, all but dropping the box onto the desk by the window. It was obvious that she liked the flat he was moving into; what wasn't to like? There was a great view of the river running through the city, and it had a quality of music to it, dusty as it was.

He guessed that what the issue was that even Larxene, who could be a bitch on her best behaviour, had a threshold, and a shorter one at that for relatives.

Demyx didn't try to take the direct way of assuring her that he wasn't going to do anything stupid. Socially, you couldn't communicate anything directly with Larxene without her teasing the hell out you, so putting a hand on her shoulder and telling her he wasn't actually an idiot who would go out drinking on his first night in Hollow Bastion was not a recommended course of action.

Instead, he worked to help his cousin pull his things out from the box. Saix's organised handwriting had been a blessing upon each of the boxes- 'Music sheets', 'Cutlery', 'Clothes'- Demyx had no idea how Axel had got the blue-haired man to help pack up, but all the stuff was meticulously and perfectly organised for shipping, and made his life ten times easier.

Demyx's hands curled around a ukulele, delicately wrapped in cloth and padded with rags to sustain any impact, and extracted it from the box of 'Miscellaneous Study Items'.

"You sure own a lot of shit," Larxene's lips curled in a sneer as she eyed the way he babied the ukulele-shaped cloth mound.

Demyx just laughed. "It'll keep me busy all night getting it all unpacked." He looked up warily to see the look into her eyes change, and thank God, it did- he could see some glint fade away as Larxene pulled out a handful of pencils, all with names of various hotels emblazoned upon their lengths.

"Jesus," the woman was laughing as she read them out, "Hard Rock Hotel, Hard Rock Hotel..."

"What can I say?" Demyx said with unabashed sincerity, "Axel let me pick some of the hotels we stayed at, and I thought the first Hard Rock was awesome, so..."

"You're still so wet behind the ears it's pathetically cute," Larxene snorted as she tossed the load of of complimentary pencils of various lengths on the desk, the clatter of them sharp in the cold air. "By the way," she said as the stalked to the doorway, "you owe me for helping you unload in your little dustbunny-den."

"Larxene!" he wailed after her abjectly, "This place is like a Bohemian classic! It's got a musical quality!"

"And a leaky roof," Larxene replied down the hall and out of sight.

Demyx pouted to nobody in particular and ran his hand over the wallpaper. It was a homely home, yes, and the wooden walls made strange sounds then he rapped them with his knuckles, but it would be his den of creativity for the next few months.

He was more or less in Hollow Bastion and renting out this place upon advice from his manager and buddy, Xigbar. Well, technically Xigbar wasn't his manager any more, but that didn't stop the guy from advising him to lay low for a while.

Lay low, and apparently as the paper Xigbar had slipped him on his way out of the courtroom read, go to a psychologist for whatever newfangled reason. Demyx shook his head as he pulled the paper from his pocket and looked at it for the upteenth time since he'd gotten it two weeks ago.

"Larxene?" he called, looking up from the crumpled address.

"Yeah?" the woman called from down the hall, voice a grunt of effort. "You gonna be a gentleman and help me out here?"

"Yeah, sorry," Demyx grinned sheepishly and bounced away from the desk and window, heading into the musty environment of the hallway to nab the 'Clothes' box from his cousin. Ignoring the dry insults Larxene shot at his back as he tossed it lazily into the bare room he'd decided to be his bedroom, he spun around and flashed her the paper:

_Doctor Corazza, Psychologist,_ words written in Xigbar's lazy scrawl of a hand, followed by an address of a clinic somewhere in Hollow Bastion, where Demyx actually had no idea was.

"Do you know where this guy is?" Demyx asked. "Xigbar wanted me to go here, no idea _why_..."

He could see Larxene's expression shift, even if she was laughing. There was an edge to her that made Demyx even more uncomfortable than usual, like she wasn't being the brutally honest Larxene he knew her to be. "Yeah, I know that street," she said. "Gosh, Demmy, it's good to know I'm not the only one thinking you're going off the deep end."

"Shut it," Demyx snapped before he knew what he was doing.

With a strange look on her face, Larxene turned and putting her back to him, still looking at the paper. "I know this guy. A few of my friends were forced to go to him. He's not bad, but he's not good either. In an extreme way."

"Whattaya mean?" he asked, pressing against his wall and feeling the hollow wood creak and protest beneath him. Damn, the concierge had said the place was old and charming, but then Demyx was wondering just _how_ old.

"Well, the guys who go to him get better with whatever they have, that's for sure," Larxene said idly, flicking the paper over her shoulder, "but they have a habit of relapsing, or so I've heard. Have fun anyway."

Demyx danced through the air to catch the fluttering, weak slip of a paper. "S-so can you show me where the place is?"

Larxene shrugged as she paced down the hall, moving easily and fluidly over the floorboards with her socks on. "I'll draw a line on the city map for you and pray to God you're not stupid enough to get lost with it," she said without looking behind herself.

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><p><em>Hi. I'm Demyx.<em>

_Hello. How are you? I'm your new patient._

_Hey. Nice day, isn't it?_

_Yo._

_Booyaka._

_Screw it, man, can I just get out of here already? And my name's Demyx._

The door creaked open and Demyx's gaze was determined to burn in the tile floor as he blurted, "Hi. I'm Demyx."

Whatever Demyx said, it sounded dumb.

_My first psychologist- that sounds like a child's play set_. My first psychologist comes with one free clipboard, one squishy dark grey couch and one beer belly. He wears an interactive doctor's coat- whatever that means- and fires off calm, plainly-stated questions about your life in a way that makes you sound like a child- that is, if you push the button hidden in his plastic back.

_"Tell me what's troubling you.","How was your relationship with your mother and your father, Mr. O'Donohue?","Have you ever harboured murderous intent, Mr. O'Donohue?" _he'll say in his tinny little pre-recorded voice, at the mercy of your finger on the button.

Maybe Demyx was stretching things. He had never been to a psychologist before and he was just drawing on the TV impressions- the white-coated bland people with beer bellies, glasses and clipboards. They end up clucking their tongues while their patient is put in a straitjacket or pilled to death.

_Or were those psychiatrists? Jesus, all these brain people._

Demyx didn't actually assume that happened to a majority of this guy's patients. That would be a pretty terrible coincidence. He just felt unnerved to think he was even going to be talking to someone whose job was basically to take a good look into his brain.

"Good morning."

He was surprised as he ground himself a little deeper into the squishy hot seat and stared a little harder at the floor. That did not sound like the voice of a middle-aged man with premature grey hair and a beer belly.

It was not a sing-songy voice, nor high, nor a woman's.

It was the sort of voice that just sort of clung to one's mind, got into it even, but in a firm but comforting way. It was the sort of voice one did think a person who knew their mind would have.

Demyx looked up and it took all his singer's training to keep his jaw nice and firm, instead of slacking up so badly it would hit the floor or something absurd like that.

Xigbar never told him this doctor was hot. When he had said 'old contact of mine', Demyx expected old as in at least Xigbar-old, which wasn't all that old but- well.

"G-good morning," he said, but realised he had already greeted Doctor Corazza when he first came in. Wasn't he being redundant? Demyx groaned mentally, wanting to cradle his head in his hands at the stupidity; but this psychologist probably didn't care. No point embarrassing himself outwardly, he figured as he smiled forcibly and watched as the doctor took his seat.

Doctor Corazza had a pair of square half-rimmed glasses that pushed up the right side of his bangs ever so slightly off his face. Demyx wondered how a guy with hair like that had this sort of job, but those thoughts quickly trailed on to wondering how a guy that good-looking in general was doing in a stuffy clinic.

He looked at Demyx at last.

Demyx wasn't sure at that moment if he was supposed to anticipate a flurry of questions, or just feel Doctor Corazza look over his body like Sherlock Holmes and draw his own conclusions about his state of mind.

He got nothing but the dry, cool silence.

"Well then, Demyx O'Donohue," Doctor Corazza didn't skip a beat. "Would you mind telling me why you're consulting me here today?" Demyx could tell he was professional at that because he intoned all that very carefully. It told the blond nothing about who he was as a person. This was just what his job dictated him to do.

"Mm-mostly to assure my buddy Xigbar that I'm not a mentally unsound kid in need of institutionalisation or a straitjacket." Demyx regretted saying that instantly. Those kinds of words didn't pass so well around there, he could bet.

But the doctor's visible deep blue eye didn't narrow, didn't even waver. Demyx kind of wanted to see the other eye.

Demyx realised he wanted him to continue talking. "Uh. Uh." He laughed in embarrassment. "Okay, when I gave shows and I was supposed to talk in between and stuff that was fun- I always enjoyed thinking up peppy things to do and say to get the energy going... but obviously I can't do shows any more," Demyx blurted off the top of his head, "and, uh, here? About myself? I got nothing."

"Tell me why you can't do shows any more."

The blond flinched a little. "C'mon. You know that. Everybody and their grandma's read the news."

"Tell me yourself."

Demyx lowered his eyes and put his hands on his knees, frowning. "I signed for a record company. I had my first album out. I was getting big and went on tour. Then, bam, I hit 500,000 gil in market value with my album and tour, and my hack of a company sues me for fine print I seem to have not fulfilled when I signed, and I lose all the money. They plug in the same formula for a million other musicians and suddenly the company isn't going bankrupt but half a dozen or so musicians are and now have sullied names."

"It was about this time and before it that you began developing habits, yes?" Doctor Corazza asked him patiently.

His mouth went a little dry. This man was the most beautiful dude he'd ever seen, but not even that made Demyx think that talking about that was a nice subject. "I don't know. What habits?"

The doctor indicated the file. "The habits your file has listed from what my clerk has gathered on you. You're not exactly unknown so the information wasn't difficult... even if this is your first consultation." He put down the paper, looking at Demyx the whole while.

His gaze made the blond shiver. In a good way. In the way that he enjoyed an entire audience's gaze, but it was... just him. Just them. Demyx crossed his arms, annoyed by the questions he was asking. His stare was enough. "I don't have an issue. I'm just here to please my buddy Xigbar."

"So you've said," the doctor nodded, conceding, before sitting back in his chair. Demyx could just hear his legs crossing under his desk. "Denial and anger are the first stages of a cycle, O'Donohue."

"_Demyx_," he snapped. At the doctor's raised eyebrows, he explained, "Only my anal retentive sound technician calls- called me O'Donohue."

"That wouldn't be fair, because you'd have to be calling me by my given name as well," the doctor said as he twirled almost lazily in his chair to reach a pen across the table, scribbling something down on loose leaf paper. Demyx couldn't see. Demyx didn't want to care.

"Aren't we supposed to get a little familiar in these sessions? You know, bond, build a relationship, all that," Demyx said, leaning in with an anxious smile. He actually wanted to know this man's given name. He didn't even stop to marvel at how low he'd gone to, hitting on his psychologist. It was just too funny. Demyx wasn't sure if he was gonna yell at or buy Xigbar a beer when he got out.

The doctor looked at Demyx narrowly for the first time in the session. What the blond had said had set him off edge, evidently.

"Or not," Demyx added quickly.

Clearing his throat, Doctor Corazza wrote down something else. "So you're denying here that you have a problem with poisons. Your friends have spoken publicly, however, that you have frequently indulged in drinking and drugs. Do you want to say anything about this, Demyx?"

"All singers who don't have a stick up their ass or a monkhood or something do a bit of this and that after shows," he defended. "We don't always have a lot of time but we try to have a little fun."

"True," the doctor said pointedly. "They also say the behaviour escalated during your trial."

"Are you really supposed to be pulling up information you got from newspapers? That's unreliable stuff."

The psychologist nodded. "It is. I don't believe it all, which I why I'm asking for your accounts. But you had to at least give the flames something to get them started. Why is your old manager Xigbar so worried about you otherwise? That man wouldn't start worrying if he was given a bundle of twine and forced to rappel down a cliff."

There was familiarity in his voice, and an almost scary dead-certainty. And Demyx knew he was right- Xigbar wasn't the mother-henning type. This doctor-friend of his really did know him. "Look, Xig wanted me to go to you because apparently I have issues. I don't know, I don't get why he thinks that, I sure don't think that, but I guess I do. Can't you figure out the rest?" he pleaded.

The doctor's hand was on his pen again. "Hm. Did you have a normal family upbringing? Did you graduate from high school?"

"Yeah? And yeah?" Demyx said bemusedly.

He then pointed his pen at Demyx's long-sleeved jacket. "You can take that off if you're uncomfortable. You need to be relaxed."

Demyx couldn't resist. "We're gonna get comfortable, huh?" he smiled dryly, wondering if Corazza could hear the slight huskiness he let creep into his voice. Might as well have some fun.

Doctor Corazza's eyes snapped up from his paper and looked at him. "Take the jacket off, please, Demyx."

The attempt to distract him hadn't worked at all. The blond faltered, callused fingertips rubbing against each other.

Doctor Corazza looked at him like he understood everything. Demyx felt a rising discomfort. Nodding, he put down his paper and said, "In next week's appointment, I want you to not be wearing anything covering up your arms. That will be all for today. Come back the same time next week."

He stood up and signed off a piece of paper, and offered it over, his small pale hands almost translucent to the blond's eyes under the halogen light. "You pay Naminé at the counter."

Demyx nodded, mouth dry. "Okay," he said, hastening to stand and taking the paper. Hesitating, he thought a moment before extending his hand. "It's nice to meet you, Doctor!" he mustered a grin.

He was taller than Doctor Corazza, but it was easy to forget when that pale face was looking at him so levelly. Cold fingers wrapped around his, and Demyx's smile unconsciously extended.

Doctor Corazza was human, after all. There was no squeeze in their handshake, nor was there much shaking, but the touch felt good to Demyx and the doctor probably realised it.

"Zexion," the shorter man said.

"Huh?"

"'Bonding, building a relationship and all that', Demyx. My name's Zexion," the psychologist's lips quirked upward slightly, bringing a calm sort of life to his face.

Demyx couldn't grin harder. "Thanks, Zexion. I'll see you next week."

_My first psychologist._ He never would want another one.

* * *

><p>Somewhere down the inter-city highway, a flame on legs was walking. He fancied the apprehension in the looks of the people driving by on their way to work- it wasn't too difficult to be acutely aware of the way silhouetted heads momentarily turned behind their shaded car windows as the vehicles crunched rapidly by.<p>

Punk, clown; they could sputter it all, it wasn't like they'd ever see that maniac on the highway again.

It was very easy to put him down as a punk-ass worth nothing, about as substantial as fire but just as harmful. The punk didn't care; he had a cigarette and a place to go and a thing to do in his life. It was called focus- if you tried to pay attention to all the dirty looks and stayed open to all the curses flung your way as a car veering near the edge squealed with the effort to miss you, you'd go close to crazy.

Axel wasn't specifically interested in becoming an even redder mess upon somebody's windshield, but how the hell else was he supposed to get anywhere without a sliver of money in his pockets and a dead phone battery?

Axel had spent the last of his money on his ticket to Hollow Bastion, and now that he was here nobody in this world was charitable when they needed to get to work.

Okay- from the look of the serendipitous charity pulling over in front of him, he was wrong.

Axel grinned and hopped up to the plain, middle-class silver car and didn't bother peering in to look at his savior, just leaped in. "Hey there," he grinned as he sidled into the surprisingly comfortable front seat.

He looked to the driver seat and blinked at the small adult sidled in it. Pale hands curled around the wheel and two pissed off sky-blue eyes glared into him.

"You didn't tell me you were coming to Hollow Bastion."

Axel opened his mouth and tried to say something witty, or just _something._ 'My record company raped my ass in a lawsuit to yank up some money, where the hell else could I go?', very defensive, or maybe the angry approach of 'Dem called me over and we're hiding out for a while- hiding, you know the definition of _hiding?'_, or just plain 'Baby, I wanted to surprise you.'

Axel's wit failed him. "Missed me?" he said instead.

That was a bad answer, according to the smoulderingly angry look he received. "Where to?" those pink lips parted to ask flatly.

Axel shrugged. _Fine, be a bitch. Nothing different there,_ he thought to himself as he shuffled through his jeans and found the paper. Xigbar's handwriting was legible in a way not many people would expect- loopy and long and looking positively drunk, but legible. He was glad he didn't have to recite it, just hold it up for those blue eyes. "My roommate and I are staying here for a while until the storm pulls over. You know what I mean."

"Huh," his benefactor said dully, and started up the car again, bringing it smoothly into the road again, gradually entering the beating heart of Hollow Bastion downtown. They cut right through it and headed over a bridge and into a more peaceful-looking area with rows of old-looking terrace houses lining the riverside. Xigbar had said he'd secured a nice home for them to hide out in, bide their time in.

"You're thinking about why I didn't call, right?" Axel said as the car began to slow down, audibly crunching gravel as it stopped in front of one of the many rowhouses.

The blond just shrugged in time with the car when they had come to a complete stop.

"You think I'll just mess things up more, right?"

The truth was that after their own record company had screwed over both Axel and Demyx and many other of their own musicians with lawsuits and pretty much robbed them blind, Axel was pretty sure they couldn't even afford to mess up and get into poisons again. Demyx may not have seen that, but Axel did.

Axel looked over to the driver's seat. Those eyes wanted him to get out.

"I'll call you," he said as he complied.

He would. He didn't forget things.

"Axel."

He stopped on his way up the stairs and turned around. Roxas was glaring at him, face light in the cold sun. "I read the news. You're broke and unsigned and now legally notorious." He could hear the subset of that- _"you're not the rockstar you promised you'd be. You're just flocking together with another bird of your feather. You don't even know this Demyx guy that well. Are you just staying with him because you didn't want to face me with all your messed up pride?"_

"Yeah," Axel laughed sourly, "I see that."

Roxas looked at him calmly, directly, seeming to scope his face for a reaction. Axel wouldn't let him see any of the bitterness or the shame. If he was going to get a verbal dressing-down from the blond, he'd do it on his feet.

"So?" the redhead said finally. "Heartless Records can burn for what they did to me, but I'm still going to make music, signed or not," he growled. "Demyx and I are in the same boat. We're gonna help each other out."

Roxas nodded.

Axel had had enough. Grunting, he turned away and shook his right hand over his shoulder, all fingers folded except for the thumb and little finger in the telephone sign. "I'll call you, Rox. Thanks for the ride."

He heard the car pull away behind him and resisted the urge to look back. Maybe apologise for messing up. He wasn't going to do that, not even for Roxas.

* * *

><p>"Woah," Axel said to nobody but himself when he stepped in and was instantly assailed by an unmistakably sour, vinegary musk.<p>

Apparently Demyx had decided to celebrate the moving in before his arrival. Judging from the jeans-clad legs in view, flung despondently over the couch arms, their owner's full body hidden from view by pillows, the party had started a while ago.

Axel shut the door behind himself, hoping none of the smell got out too much to the neighbours, dropped the few belongings he had carried in his bag and surveyed the apartment.

It was a pretty good-looking place that Xigbar had gotten for them, he had to admit, if not a little musty over the stench permeating in the air. He could work here.

Not bothering to wake up his roommate, Axel noted the many boxes covering up the wall: his stuff, meticulously labeled and well-organised. On the dining table, he also saw letter paper, scrawled upon to an inch of its life in pencil sketches and scrabbles. Looked like somebody had decided to write some music.

The redhead sauntered up to it, and realised they weren't tunes that his roommate had written, but lyrics, settled next to the address of some clinic of _Doctor Corazza, Psychologist_-

He nearly snorted as he deciphered the loopy handwriting.

_"He has eyes blue like the deep depth of the ocean_

_and he sounds just like the beat of the waves washing_

_in and out as I go deeper-"_

Well, _somebody_ was hot for doctor.

Thoroughly entertained, Axel spared his new roommate the indignity of filing through the wet dream of a lyrics sheet further, instead heading to examine the kitchen. With Demyx out of commission, there wasn't much of a probability that he was going to get much help figuring out where all his stuff went, so Axel didn't bother.

The floorboards creaked beneath him when he moved, an enemy that didn't want him creeping about the apartment unheard.

Once upon a time, Axel didn't have creaky wood beneath his feet- he had marble tiles of luxurious hotel rooms.

He would have it all back someday, plus Roxas. He would. It would just take work, and a level head, and no more giving in to temptation. He didn't know or care how his roommate would fit into the scheme of things other than help him save a money, but things would work in a few month's time.

That had become Axel's mantra: things would work- they'd work or they'd burn.

* * *

><p><strong>Sure is different from the first chapterprologue thing, huh? That's because I pulled up a plot, hurhurhur... Sorry if things seem to be going a little slow, but my notes have been a little rebellious for me lately. Sorrrrry. :(**

**Please leave a review to tell me what you think. I cherish your thoughts!**


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